Locked

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Where we were sitting on that small seaplane said everything you needed to know. Ed should have been next to me, but he was in the front of the plane, the result of a fight we'd had twenty minutes before.

The point of this spring break trip had been to look at colleges. It was only junior year. We had plenty of time to decide where we would go. But Ed was a planner, and he was set on us choosing the same school. “I don't want to be anywhere you're not, A,” he had told me. “And I don't see that changing anytime soon.”

My name is August, by the way, although Ed and my little sister, Maggie, who was currently in the front row next to Ed sharing an iPad, call me A. Ed and I have been together since we were fifteen, almost two full years, but it seems like longer. It seems like forever. He's been my next-door neighbor for as long as I can remember. We're totally that couple. Please don't hold it against me.

But lately I had just been feeling…I don't know. Like I was in a box or something. Like too many things were decided—four walls, no room. I loved him. I knew I did. He was my best friend. He had been there for everything—my whole life. He was there when my mom died freshman year and there when my dad got remarried, just a few short months later. He held my hand during the ceremony. He knew enough to take me to get burgers during the reception—that there was no way I could sit in that tent and watch my dad on the dance floor with another woman all night. Before we were even together, Ed was my lifeline.

He was everyone's lifeline, really. His little brothers worshipped him. And he was the only one of the three of us—me, Noah, and Ed—who had a consistently solid home. Two parents. Dinner at six. The whole bit. We relied on him. We needed him.
I
needed him. But now…

Now I wanted a chance to see what I
wanted
, away from everything. Away from having to be my little sister's keeper. Away from having to look out for Dad while Miss Opportunity was off at her Pilates trainer. College was my chance to finally be selfish. And to break what I feared was a habit—I relied on Ed so much it scared me. I didn't know how to tell him, but Ed wasn't my top priority. Not now. Not on this.

So I didn't. Tell him, I mean. Instead, I acted sullen and irritable until finally he called me out on it while we were in the waiting area at the tiny Lake Union airport.

“I don't think you want this,” he said. I pretended, at first, that he meant Seattle University, which we had just seen, but I knew he didn't. I knew he meant us, together forever.

“Of course I do,” I said. I didn't want to get into it then, but it was true. Being with him was like air—it was necessary. I needed him. I loved him. And even though he claimed otherwise, I knew he didn't need me. He would be fine on his own. I knew that he loved me, but I also knew that love was fragile. I knew how quickly things could fade and be gone. But Ed didn't. Ed had never lost someone.

Maggie was standing at the window, waiting to see our plane land, and she pretended not to hear us. She was only a freshman, so she wasn't looking at schools, but she had tagged along because Dad was on a business trip and our chaperone okayed it. My dad is on the board of our school, and we can pretty much get away with whatever we want—a fact that my friends say I never take advantage of. They're right. The only time I've ever been in trouble was when I skipped SAT prep and drove to Barnes & Noble instead. I came home at seven, and my dad had already called the cops. When I asked him what could have possibly prompted him to take such extreme action before sundown, he said simply: “You always do what you say you're going to.”

Fay and Karin were a few seats away, looking at magazines, and I knew they could hear us, too. I knew everyone could. Even Noah, who had earbuds in, his eyes fixed on his lap.

Ed looked at me. I could see my words hanging between us.
Of course I do.
He exhaled. “The fucking sad part is, you really don't.”

Ed never swore. He was class president, the oldest of four brothers. The chair of the student outreach program. He was the go-to good guy. But right then, he was something I had never seen before. He was pissed.

“Please don't do this right now,” I whispered. I reached for his hand, but he curled his fingers away. Ed never turned away from me. Not once over our two years as boyfriend and girlfriend or our lifetime as friends do I remember him denying me anything—his touch, his voice, his time. He gave everything so freely. It was easy for him. It was easy for him to love me. Maybe because, for him, it felt like a choice.

He shook his head. “I love you,” he said. It was under his breath, but he didn't make much effort to hide his words. “But you have to figure out what you want.”

My body went numb. We never fought. I knew something was really wrong. So wrong, in fact, that when it came time to board, he wouldn't sit with me. He went right up to the front of the plane and plunked down next to Maggie.

Why couldn't I have told him then? Why couldn't I have just said the words? I
wanted
to tell him I wanted him. That I wanted to go to the same school. That I wanted to lie on the bed in his dorm room, laugh with his roommate, watch TV on his computer side by side. That I wanted to hear about his classes, and have him help me with that history prereq I was definitely going to have to take. I wanted to tell him he was the only one I wanted to share all of that with.

But I didn't tell him that. I didn't tell him anything. Because even though I wanted it to be, I wasn't sure it was true anymore. Instead, I sat in the back row with Noah Greer. Noah—Ed's best friend. Noah—the boy with the most beautiful blue eyes I had ever seen. The object of a crush so enduring that I had learned to live with it—like traffic or high school or the low hum of the radiator in the winter. It didn't have a beginning or, despite my relationship with Ed, an end.

It had always been the three of us, and then it was the two of us—Ed and August. There was not, nor had there ever been, a chance of a Noah and August. And that was fine. Because the truth was, I had known Noah forever but still had no idea who he really was. Especially not now.

Mr. Davis got into the jump seat and the pilot read off the safety rules. We were going to the San Juan Islands for two days. We were meeting up with the other half of our tour, which had opted to visit the University of Portland. “An entertaining and educational spring break,” Principal Celleher had promised our parents.

Two days on the islands. Some sun. Some water sports. Some campfires. Then home.

Nowhere did it say anything about a plane crash.

I wake up to the sound of the ocean. Before the pain comes steaming in like unwanted sunlight on a Saturday morning, I think maybe I'm back in Mexico, on that Labor Day trip Ed and I took with his family. His parents are really cool, they let us share a room, and I remember what it felt like to wake up in his arms. To hear the ocean so close—peaceful, eternal—and to think there was nowhere else I wanted to be but right there with him.

But I'm not in Mexico. And I'm not in Ed's arms. Not even close.

Instead, I'm being dragged through water. But it doesn't feel like water; it feels like glass—it cuts, burns. My eyes are foggy, my vision out of focus. I try to pick my head up to see something, anything, but a pain fires through my body so intense that I'm sent back down underwater. I'm going to drown. I don't even have the energy to pick my head back up. Then I feel a hand on my back, pressing me up to the surface. My head breaks through, and the pain greets me with the air—it crescendos—so intense I can no longer feel it. This is it. When your body stops feeling pain, when it becomes too much for your brain to accept, you die.

I don't know where I am. I have little idea what has happened. I remember a hand. His. And then down—darkness and water.

For a brief moment my eyes catch my arm. It looks detached from my body—trailing out behind me like a piece of driftwood. And then I see the mark of blood, like ink, all around me.

I try to scream or cry, but I can't. I'm paralyzed.
Come quickly
, I silently pray.
Please don't let this go on too long.

But then I hear it: a voice. His voice. Noah. His breathing is labored, but it comes through clearly: “It's okay. You're okay. You're safe. I've got you.”

I try to think, to grasp at something, some information I know I should be sorting through, but nothing is there. All of reality is suspended, but I guess that's what happens when you die.

And then I remember my sister.

I start to struggle. I try to scream, to call her name, but I'm not sure I'm making any sound at all. Noah's hand is strong on my back, but it can't keep me steady. And the pain is back: the surest sign of life. It comes in a wave so unbearable—and it doesn't crash or break. There are pieces of metal floating all around us, but they're not around, they're
in
. They're stuck in me.

“Maggie,” I mumble.

Something sharp punctures my lungs, and I gasp for air before the world goes dark.

Time isn't continuous. It fades in and out like songs on the radio. There is no order. Nothing builds or escalates. Everything is at random.

I'm on the beach with Noah. I can feel the sand digging into the cuts on my back. It stings like I've been laid down on a hornets' nest, but I don't move. I'm too afraid to even make a sound.

Noah's hand is on my cheek. His face is fuzzy, but I can feel his breath—warm and soft and familiar. And then his lips are on mine and he's breathing through me, for me. He's trying to bring me back to life.

I cough and sputter, and he sits back. CPR. I remember the three of us—me, Noah, and Ed—took a class at summer camp years ago. They wouldn't let us lifeguard without it. Ed named the dummies. Noah's was April. Mine was Chance. Ed's was Will, because he kind of looked like one.

Noah places a hand on my face. His blue eyes look into mine. “Just try to stay still,” he says.

His forehead is bleeding, and I reach up and brush it with my fingertips. The pain makes my hand fall, and when it does, I throw up. Bile. Acid. I can barely even turn my head to miss Noah.

“Hold on,” he's saying. “You're going to be okay, just hold on.”

But I know I'm not. I can feel the metal scraping my ribs, tearing at things. Maybe even my heart. I want to pray for death, but I can't, not with Maggie out there.

I look down at my leg. I can see the bone poking through—white, mucusy. I throw up again.

Noah's hands are on my body. He's saying something, but they're just words. There is no way to fix this. No way to hold on. I know enough to know you don't recover from these kinds of injuries. I am probably already internally bleeding. Soon my organs will begin to shut down. Maybe I'll lose consciousness before then. I can hope.

I feel him take my head in his hands. I squint to look at him. “Just try to breathe,” he says.

My T-shirt is in shreds around me, and I have a flash of modesty as I feel him removing its remains. His face is pinched up, tight. He places his hand on my ribs, and I feel a shot of pain so intense my vision goes white.

Noah's voice is far off, distant, but I can hear him whispering. No, not whispering. Chanting. Low and primal. Another flash of searing pain, like a comet across my body, and then a strange coolness begins to spread—like the Icy Hot I used to rub on after track meets. It travels out from my ribs, my legs, until it covers my entire body. And then there is nothing. No pain. No sensation. Just darkness.

When I wake up for the second time, I know for sure I have died. I know because I am healed. My body is still in the tattered remains of my clothes, but my leg is perfect—no bone, not even a cut—and when I run my hand over my chest, there is no metal there. No gashes. No wounds. No sensation whatsoever, except the steady beating of my heart.

I take a deep breath. I look up at the sky. So this is what the After looks like—clear blue sky and no pain. Noah. For a brief, selfish moment I imagine him weeping over my remains, kissing my lips, telling my limp corpse he always felt something for me, too.

I sit up. I'm on the beach, in the same spot, and Noah is next to me. It nearly knocks the wind out of me. Why is he here? He has a look on his face so tense I want to ask him what the matter is—we're dead, aren't we? Shouldn't all our problems have disappeared?

Immediately his palms land on my cheeks. “You're okay,” he says. His voice is filled with relief and something else, something—

“Noah,” I say. I swallow. “Are we dead?”

He laughs, and it sounds so crazy, so out of place, I feel my face get cold underneath his fingertips. “No,” he says.

I look down at my body. I can see the faintest scars across my abdomen and down my leg, but when I run my hand over them, they disappear. I sit back. I take Noah's hands off me. I scramble to my feet. “What is going on?” I say. “How…” I start. “What did you do?” I finally manage to say.

Noah has a blank look on his face, unreadable. It's the same look I've seen so many times. The one he wears when Ed asks him about the girls he's seeing. The one he wears when he talks about his family. The one he wore the night Ed asked me to be his girlfriend.

He hangs his head. “You were in pain,” he says. “It was bad. I—”

I sink back down into the sand. I think about his hands on me, about the low, primal chant right before I lost consciousness. “You healed me.”

Noah picks his gaze up to meet mine. “I don't know what happened,” he says. “All I know is that I looked at you, I was losing you, and then it was like something took over me. Some—”

“Have you ever—? Did this ever happen before?”

Noah shakes his head. “No.”

“Maggie,” I say, but this time it's out loud. I stand up again, but my body can't sustain it, and I tumble back down. Noah catches me, and draws me into his arms. We never hug, Noah and I. Not anymore. Not since that night at the beginning of sophomore year when Ed asked me to be his. It became like an unspoken agreement—no touching. Believe me, I know it hasn't been a sacrifice for him. Noah has never had a lack of female physical attention. But we've barely spoken in the last year, either. I thought he'd miss our friendship, at least. But he just thinks I took Ed away from him.

Ed.

Please let him be okay. Please let him be with my sister.
Ed would figure it out. He'd get her where she needs to go.

I pull myself out of Noah's arms—it takes more strength than I knew I had. “Where are they?” I ask.

“I don't know,” he says. “We were going down, and I grabbed your hand.”

I look out at the horizon. There is nothing there. No floating plane pieces. No metal. Nothing. How is that possible?

I look back at Noah. His forehead is bleeding, and I reach out and touch him. “We should clean this.”

Noah opens his mouth but then closes it again. “I'm fine,” he whispers. “I wasn't hurt.”

We both look down at his body. I see a flash of abs underneath his button-down where it's come undone. I feel the blood in my neck, and look away. You'd think the current circumstances would override my stupid, pointless attraction to him, but no. In the face of death, Noah is more compelling than ever.

“We should see if anything has washed up,” I say. “Or maybe they're farther down the shore.”

Noah nods. “Can you stand?”

“I think so.”

He holds his arm out, and I steady myself. I look around. The beach stretches around us and then behind it's all forest. The slope of the landscape disappears upward. I can't be sure, but this feels like an island. It feels removed, unattached to anything.

“Where are we?”

Noah doesn't answer. He's a few paces in front of me already, and I cup my hand over my forehead. I try to put together what happened. The plane went down. We're on some island somewhere off the coast of Seattle. Then I remember that Noah healed me and a ridiculous thought enters my mind: We're in another dimension—one where Noah has healing powers. For a minute, I entertain the possibility that maybe I'm dreaming, but it doesn't stick. This is real.

I catch up to Noah at the shore. He's looking outward, but there is nothing there. Nothing on the beach. No one. It's just us.

I suddenly think about last week, when I went over to Ed's. He was going to help me on an AP US History paper. I suck in that class. Suck suck suck. I'm dragging the class average down by at least thirty points. The facts just don't stick. I don't know what it is about my brain, I'm good at math—numbers and equations I get—but somehow when it comes to dates, I can't get them right. Ed is always coming up with mnemonic devices for me.

It was unusual that Noah would be over. In addition to school, he also works two jobs. He's a server at Westin's and a caddie at the club on weekends. Noah lives with his aunt—both his parents died when we were ten. He doesn't talk about it, not ever. I know money is tight, though. Noah has always had to pay his own way. He was only on this college visiting trip because the school paid—some scholarship, although I'm pretty sure I know where the money came from. Noah isn't one to take handouts, and I knew he knew Ed's family paid, so I was surprised when he showed up. I was surprised he'd accept the offer.

Anyway, last week, I parked on the street and walked up the driveway. I knocked, but no one answered, so I let myself in. I know the security code to their house. Ed's mom is usually shuffling the boys to soccer or karate or something in the afternoons and his father works until dinnertime. He's a lawyer, and Ed wants to be, too. Will be, too.

I found them in the backyard fixing the fence. They didn't see me, and I stood inside at the screen door and listened. Ed was talking.

“You didn't even let her finish.”

“She didn't have to,” Noah answered.

Ed leaned a piece of plywood against the outdoor table. “You're so stubborn, man. You know we care about you.”

Noah looked up at Ed. He wiped a hand against his forehead. “We,” he said. It sounded mocking.

I saw Ed stop moving. “All of us. Don't sabotage your future because—”

“Because what? Because I don't want to keep taking charity from my best friend?”

I felt my blood turn cold. Noah and Ed never fought. They were brothers. They had each other's backs. And I didn't want to admit it, but the idea of Ed giving Noah money made me uncomfortable. I didn't want to think about Noah being in his debt, even if it wouldn't be that way.

“Take the money,” Ed said. “Go to college. It's what my mom wants.”

“You'd like that, wouldn't you?”

Ed exhaled. “Yeah,” he said. “I would.”

“You can keep being the good guy,” Noah said. His tone was acid. “Maybe after this we'd be even.”

They stood there, staring at each other, until I couldn't take it anymore. I rattled the screen door and stepped outside. “Hey, guys!” I said, a little too brightly. “What's going on?” Ed came over and kissed me quickly, and Noah left shortly after, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, what he meant.
“Maybe after this we'd be even.”

“We need water,” Noah tells me now. How long has he been looking at me? A minute? Ten? For the first time since I woke up healed, I notice my throat is bone dry. The thirst rages not only in my lungs but in my whole body. I stretch my swollen fingers.

“Okay.” I follow him as he turns away from the beach and into the woods. There is no path, and as I follow Noah—fast—I curse myself for wearing shorts today. Weeds bite at my legs as I scramble to keep up. Noah bends down every once in a while, runs the ground between his thumb and forefinger, and then takes off again.

The air is hard to come by in my chest, and I'm not sure my legs can continue. Ed would never do this. Ed would let me set the pace. He'd keep turning around, asking me if I was okay. But Noah won't stop climbing.

I'm about to tell him I can't go any farther when I hear it—and then see it—a stream. No, better than that. A river.

Noah turns around, offering me his hand. But I don't take it. I plow right past him and into the water. I cup it in my hands and bring them to my lips, and when I swallow I've never tasted anything so delicious. It's cool going down and seems to spread through my body instantly—hydrating my stomach, limbs, toes. It zings through my head. I keep drinking.